The ‘I’ in Team

Peer-to-peer best practices for growing data science teams

Liz Roten

September 19, 2023

In the beginning…

We started off with a tiny data science team.

And by tiny I mean 2 people.

Over time, our team grew.

More data scientists + R users

but…

we were all very used to working alone.

…how bad was this incident?

Back in the beginning, I wrote an R package for our org


My colleague installed the update.


… while they were writing a time sensitive report

What went wrong?

  • Inaccurate and inadequate documentation
  • Lack of communication
  • Mismatched priorities

Could my manager have prevented this?

No

There is an “I” in “Team”

Team: a group of individuals working together

You can shape your team by

  • caring for your team
  • seeing how you fit into it.

  1. Make the implicit explicit
  2. All knowledge is valid and valuable
  3. Document (aka, make life easier for your friends)

Make the implicit explicit

Don’t deny that water exists

  • Every team has a culture
  • Don’t give your coworker the task of defining water in addition to evaluating if the water is right for them.

Everyone has their pet peeves and preferences






(and they aren’t inherently bad!)

Figure out what your water is like

  • What does your weekly schedule look like?
  • What tools do you use daily? Why?
  • What expectations does your work group have around email/message response times?

All knowledge is valuable

all the knowledge that the new person is bringing in is valuable

  • no matter where they are coming from!

Give your new colleague grace

  • They are testing out this new workplace
  • Patience will prove best
  • You(r manager) hired this person for a reason
  • Don’t rely on catch-all assumptions: ask for specifics

Document

Which comes first?

The bowl!

Data science is a creative field

There are many ways to solve a problem

Embrace the diversity of opinion and experience

A matter of investment

  • Invest in tools that encourage documentation and lower cognitive load.
  • Invest in the time it takes to document/clean up/organize your work
  • Invest in strong social relationships

Work doesn’t always feel like work

  • Documentation is communication
  • Schedule time to build connections and trust.
  • Social gatherings are just as valuable as focus time

Ultimately…

There is an “I” in “Team”

Teams are made up of a bunch of individuals, and its not just the manager’s job to make it work.

I’ve grown immensely from working with my colleagues

Thank you

lizroten.com/team

References

  • Fish
  • Cereal
    • The Suite Life of Zack and Cody Quotes. (n.d.). Quotes.net. Retrieved September 12, 2023, from https://www.quotes.net/mquote/928559.
    • Cereal
    • Milk
    • Bowl
  • David Foster Wallace 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech here

lizroten.com/team

posit::conf(2023)